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Sam and welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a comic property and how well it represents that source material. And today I am just running for the topic here because I just. I can't keep my hands where they need to be while I'm doing that. If you haven't figured it out, we're looking at a Naruto game. And since I. I will say this right up front. I have done. I have not read any Naruto. I have not watched any Naruto. So who could I possibly have as a guest? It's Naruto creator himself, Luke Hare.
I mean, I'm not. I'm not the Naruto creator. I specifically had not read NARUTO since like 2006 before deciding, hey, you need someone to read Naruto and talk about it. I'll read all of Naruto and talk about it. Hello, it's me, Luke Coltrag from online. He they. If you recognize this voice and are like, oh, I don't like this guy because he just talks and recaps all of the podcasts and. Or all the comics and manga. It's not my thing. Too bad. I've taken over Naruto Town. I've taken over. I've eaten all of the sages. I've eaten all those tailed beasts. Chris doesn't know. What? What. What's going on? Because we're talking about Naruto Ninja Council. And luckily, Chris, you and I have a trust build. You and I are like Naruto and Sasuke, where we're rivals, but we respect each other. But also, your older brother killed your entire family. Is that true?
Maybe. I don't know. You should tell me because all I know is that there's leave somehow. And I had salad for dinner.
I made quesadillas. Just like cheese quesadillas. And then I had some leftover refried beans. Put some salsa on that and use it as a dip. That's good eats. Yeah. So you want me to get in to talk about Naruto?
Then I think that you should tell me why small children will run leaning forward with their hands behind their butts.
So Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto, who initially did not actually want to do this series. Like if you read the manga collections or if you read it on the Shonen Jump app, which again, is like two bucks a month and is a super good deal. He talks about how like, he failed to get a manga approved time after time. And initially what he wanted to do was a book about giant monsters fighting, like a Kaiju comic. And instead his editor was like, no, that's. That's not really a comic. You need to have like, characters and plot. And so he's like, okay, it's going to be about this kid named Naruto. And he. Yeah, it's. It's going to be about this kid. And he got the initial chapter done and they're like, yeah, but you need other characters. You need him to have interactions with people other than his like mentor figure. He's like, oh, okay, yeah, I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out together. And that's how Naruto started. Naruto flew by the seat of his pants a lot. And so instead of giving you a origin and like, background based on how the manga presents things, I'm going to do the logical thing that the manga failed to do because Masashi Kishimoto made choices. And I'm glad he succeeded. And I'm glad he and his baseball team were not killed by baboons. And I am sorry that someone spoiled Movie seven for him.
So wait, things can be logical in anime? Because I largely like anime and manga because they're not logical and that makes it fun.
Well, it depends what you mean by logical. I mean, if you establish rules and you establish how things need to work, it should follow at least some logical progression. Like Bobobobo had logic for its world and setting. But if you break that, if you break what the comic is about, if you don't follow the Golden Road, as The creator of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure says, that's how you fail as a manga creator. So okay then. Uh huh. So at the beginning of the world, you know how there was the Divine Tree, and like everybody in the world, lived near the Divine Tree in multiple cultures.
Yes.
Yeah. So Princess Kaguya ate the fruit of that tree and gained the power of chakra. And with it, she was able to end all war on the planet. And eventually she also gave birth to two sons, Hagoromo and Hamura. And when they grew up, they both could also wield chakra. Their mom, the Princess, found out about it and tried to kill them. By assuming the form of the Ten Tailed Beasts. But they defeated her by working together. And Hagoromo absorbed her chakra, becoming the Sage of the Six Paths, while also creating the demonic Ten Tail statue where she was more or less sealed. There's a lot of stuff where either it's overly complicated or just kind of poorly explained in the manga. Like the anime apparently does a lot to fix it, but I'm not watching all those episodes of the anime because I have to watch all of One Piece and the Simpsons for the podcast that I do. But you're with me so far. So there's a princess. She got chakra, and then she had two sons who betrayed her. So Hagoromo went on to have two sons, Indra, who was self sufficient, and Asura, who needed help from others. And seeing how Asura gained power from his connections to others, Hagoromo's like, oh, hey, we've got this thing that has 10 tails. I'm going to split it into nine different beasts. And then he sealed the statue on the moon where his brother Hamra looked after it until he died.
Okay, well that doesn't sound very nice.
No, Hamra was like, yeah, no, we don't want our mother to get free, so I'm just going to live on the moon like you do.
Oh, so you left out the moon part. Now it's fine.
Oh, you missed the part where he sealed the statue on the moon with his brother. Yeah, okay, sorry. So Indra didn't need others. And so Hagoromo was like, yeah, because you're really self sufficient. I think that's bad for a leader. So Asura is going to inherit all my powers. And then the brothers kind of were set at odds. And so Indra's descendants formed the Uchiha clan, while Ashura's descendants formed the Senju and Uzumaki clans. So I'm slowly painting a large picture here. So time passed, and there was an age of warring ninja clans between the five great shinobi countries. Earth, Lightning, Water, Wind, and Fire, where the ninjas of these more or less mercenary communities fought. And even children were used in these battles. And so two of the warring clans in the Land of Fire were the Senju and the Uchiha. See, it's already coming back. Because do you know what Uzumaki means?
No, I do not.
It's like a whirlpool. It's like spiraling. Naruto's like a fish cake. It also has that spiral on it. So it's all about repeating patterns going until you get to a singular point.
Okay, makes sense so far.
So then we got Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha, who were the science of the clans. Initially, they met as kids and were friends until their parents caught them. They're like, we don't want to fight in this war where we're going to have to kill each other. And parents were like, tough, because we've. We've got to fight so we can make the most money and be the strongest clan. And so they were made to continue fighting and then eventually rose to the leadership of their clans. Izuna Madara's brother activated the power of the Sharingan, which is one of those things where if you see people talk about Naruto, they talk about eye powers. Like their eyes get all weird. That's. That's another one of those repeating themes. And this allowed them to access powerful chakra abilities that Ashura and his ancestors had hidden in a series of stone tablets that only members of the Uchiha clan could see. And basically, the stronger your powers got, which required different things, the more of these tablets you could see to kind of move you on to the next step. So Madara and Hashirama still wanted peace, and especially Nenda fighting with child soldiers. And unfortunately, Tobirama, who is Hashirama's brother, fatally stabbed Izuna. And in order to make peace, Madara's like, hey, Hashirama, I'm going to give you a choice, dog. We've been friends for a while. If you sacrifice your brother's life or your life, we'll make peace. And Hashirama's like, cool, I'm going to stab myself. I just want to make sure that no one else from my clan is going to kill Madara or the rest of the Uchihas. And Madara's like, no, dude, I was just testing you. We're good. They fist bumped. And he's like, yeah, we're going to be united now. But Izuna, as he's dying there because he got sad by Tobirama, is like, hey, you shouldn't trust these. What I'm going to do is take out my eyes and give them to you. So now you're going to have my eye powers. And he's like, well, I don't think I'm going to need to do this. Hashirama wants peace. And Izun's like, yeah, I'm dying here. I'm pretty sure it's not going to work out. So the clans then needed to pick a Leader to represent themselves. Land of Fire. And Hashirama's like, yeah, Madara should be the leader. He kind of comes from a different background. He comes from a smaller clan. Until Rama's like, no, what we're going to do is hold an election and Hashirama, because he comes from the largest village, wins the election and becomes the first Hokage of Konohagakure, or the Hidden Leaf Village. So that's where that leaf thing comes from. And that's the symbol. The Naruto headband is the symbol of the Hidden Leaf Village. Sometimes it's whatever village they're coming from.
Makes sense. And somebody's just carrying around eyeballs?
No, they put them into their own eyes.
Oh, so they have backup eyeballs.
They don't really explain what you do with your old eyeballs. There's. There's honestly a lot of logical questions that just never get addressed in this. Because it's. It's all a big metaphor. Because Uchihas walk like this and Senju's walk like this. And I know this isn't a video podcast, but much like you were talking about the Naruto run, I am acting this out the entire time for the community.
I can back that up. He is. And you're just gonna have to hear it through our voices.
Yes. So Madara, knowing that his people be Uchiha were going to be subjugated is like, hey, Hashirama, I'm going to give you one last chance for peace. You can either pick to let me stay in the village, or you can let your brother stay in the village. He's like, well, he's my brother. We've got like, everyone else is really happy with it. The rest of the Uchiha clan were happy. And I was like, no, I'm getting out of this. I'm going to try and destroy this village. And eventually he uses the Nine Tailed Fox spirit to attack. And Hashirama's like, okay, you've been doing this for a few years. I've just got to kill you. And so they have a big fight on the waterfall and he kills him.
Got to die somewhere pretty at least, because waterfalls are cool.
Oh yeah. They actually even then carve the waterfall. So it's Hashirama on one side and Madara on the other side. Collectible waterfalls collect them all.
That's really cool.
So this, the formation of the Hidden Lake Village then leads to the formation of four other villages that don't really matter. For the larger picture that I'm trying to Paint here. And the nine tailed beasts get dispersed as different weapons to the different villages, and they start sealing them inside of the hosts. Inside of like hosts, which generally helps to keep the bees because the site. Hey, don't attack us with that three tailed creature. Because we have our own tailed beast. And so eventually Hashirama decides to step down, and Tobirama gets elected as the second Hokage and makes some important changes, like he sets up a ninja academy to train the children. And he also importantly, chooses the Uchiha clan to act as the police force in the village. But this also means that the Uchiha can never hold leadership positions in the government, which further solidifies them as outsiders.
So I have gone from thinking this is a Cold War metaphor to a general African colonization metaphor to let's just throw it all together.
Oh, wait till we get to the genocide.
Oh, fun.
Uh huh. Believe it. That's. That's Naruto's catchphrase. Naruto will eventually get this. Will eventually just get into this. So the village starts the practice of using three man cells to ensure a mix of skills and support in their ninja. Hiruzen Sarutobi leads one that consists of Jiraiya, who's a wild child, Orochimaru, who's a reserved guy, and Tsunade, who's a girl. And the three of them train together, and then they graduate and eventually split apart to go their own ways. Orochimaru wanted to become the next Hokage, but he gets turned down, so he goes to study science. Jiraiya becomes a wandering monk and writes adult novels like Horny Books. And then Tsunade studies medical jutsu and grapples with the gambling addiction because she's very bad at gambling.
Makes sense.
Another cell is eventually led by Minato Namikaze that consists of Kakashi Hatake, who's a reserved guy, Obito Uchiha, who's a wild child, and Rin Nohara, who's the girl. And Obito wants to prove himself to Kakashi and to redeem the Uchiha name, he gets to develop the Sharingan. Then in an accident, he gets pinned under a rock with like half his body, and he's like, oh, Kakashi, I'm dying. You gotta protect Rin. Here, take my eye. And so Kakashi gets the Sharingan and puts it into his own eye. But then later on, Rin, who became the host of the Three Tailed Beast, gets killed. And Kakashi was unable to save her and actually has to let her Die so she doesn't go on a rampage.
I can imagine how that would probably make someone go crazy.
Yeah, but I mean, luckily Obito died half pinned under the rock. We're not going to hear about that name ever again. We're going to hear about that name. So the Uchiha Clan, meanwhile, found out that they were specifically able to use their eye powers to control the Nine Tailed Fox. And because it had attacked the Hiddenleaf Village in the past, the elders were suspicious of the Uchiha Clan. Sarutobi, who had trained with Tsunade and Jiraiya and Orochimaru became the Third Hokage. And he's like, hey, no, we just need to make peace with the Uchiha Clan. But dissident factions within the village refused. And when the Uchiha are like, well, I guess we're never going to get this, Sarutobi's like, yeah, sorry about that. I'm stepping down as leader of the village. Minato, you're up as the Fourth Hokage. Best of luck, buddy.
So everyone lives happily ever after, right?
No. I haven't even gotten to fucking Naruto.
Man, oh man.
I know, I know. But trust me, explaining it this way makes more sense. We're on page three. Out of like the eight pages that I wrote and trimmed down, I mean, I initially took like 28 pages of notes with no spaces. So this is. This is me paring down. So, unknown to the world and forgotten as a legend, Kaguya, you know, the princess who got sealed inside of the statue. She survived the whole time and wanted to bring back the Chakra Tree that would give her power over the world. So she used her will to form black and white figures known as Zetsu, which she shaped after her children. So there's Black Zetsu and White Zetsu, and sometimes they can come together, and there are these plant like creatures that she can grow and control. And using them, she was able to secretly save both Madara and Obito for her larger plan to restore the Ten Tailed Beast and then the Chakra Tree and then control the planet once more. So she saw that Madara wanted power and revenge on and also for his people because they were going to be betrayed. While Obito wanted revenge on Kakashi for letting Rin die because by merging with one of the Zetsus, he got to go and see. Oh, hey, Kakashi. He's not saving her. Oh no. What are you doing, Kakashi? I gave you my eye. I've got the other eye. But what are you doing? I guess I'm going to have to kill you. So Madara, who wasn't fully aware that he was working for Kaguya at all, then is like, hey, Obito, I need you to pretend to be me. And you are to form a group that's called the Akatsuki, which is eventually a terrorist group of nationless ninjas that seek to collect all of the Tailed Beasts. But no one's entirely sure what their end goal is, because, like, even Madara, who thinks he's at the top of this organization, doesn't know what's going on. So some of them, they're that group.
In Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
You mean Hydra?
No, no, the other one. That was the.
Oh, the tv.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, I, I, I dropped out of that like three episodes in. It wasn't fun.
Yeah, I made a good choice. Maybe. I don't know.
I have one piece to watch, Hoss. I have to read all of Naruto. Actually, I never have to read Naruto again. It's going to be great. So Madara believes that he's going to be put into a position where he can control the world. Other members are like, oh, hey, we're just going to be able to use this to blackmail everyone if we have all the Tailed Beasts. And so Abito uses his other Shar to pretend to be Madara, and even keeps that secret, developing another Persona within this where he calls himself Toby. But really, the actual Madara is kind of waiting to be resurrected as part of this plan. Basically, I'm going to say Obito every time Obito shows up, but he's either showing up as Toby or pretending to be Madara because it's very confusing because. Because Naruto makes sense.
And thank you for that.
So the Akatsuki catch the interest of Orochimaru, who initially joins him as a member, but he leaves dude, who is real interested being in bloodlines and techniques of the ninja clans. And so he leaves and forms his own hidden organization, which includes Kabuto, who is an orphan who was raised as an assassin and eventually loses his own identity. So serving Orochimaru becomes his whole goal in life. The Nine Tailed Fox, meanwhile, gets sealed in Kushina Uzumaki. Hey, there's that name coming back again. Whose Uzumaki clan was skilled at sealing jutsu. She ended up marrying Minato, who became the Fourth Hokage. She gets pregnant and pregnancy weakens the seal for whatever reason. So Obito's like, hey, I need to catch that Nine Tailed Fox. Eventually he releases the seal, the beast goes on a rampage, and the two parents work together and use the last of their chakra to seal it inside their son. Do you know what that son's name is?
Jonathan?
Naruto.
Naruto. That was my third guess.
Yeah. So nobody knew really what happened? It's just that. Oh. Naruto's this kid who has dangerous power and is now an outcast since the Fourth Hokage died. The third Hokage got reinstated, and the village is even more suspicious of the Uchihas because it was the Nine Tailed Fox that had attacked. So Danzo, who leads the route, which is sort of the ninja CIA in the Hidden Village in the Hidden Leaf Village, decides to promote Itachi Uchiha to be a secret agent spying on his own clan because he's worried that they're going to rebel. And Itachi just loves this village. So a few years pass, Itachi proves himself to be willing to do anything to protect the village, including killing his own best friend. That way, he can take his best friend's eyes to make his own eyes better. And this plan culminates in Danzo sending Itachi in to kill every other member of the Uchihas before they can rebel. But he leaves his younger brother Sasuke alive. Itachi is helped in this by Obito, who wanted to take out potential Sharingan users and to get revenge for Madara, since Uchiha didn't follow him when he left the village. And so the truth of these murders and Obito's involvement in disguise is hidden from everyone. Itachi is branded a traitor, who then actually secretly goes to spy the Akatsuki for Danzo and a Hidden Leaf villain. So everyone's like, oh hey, that guy killed everyone else in his family. He's. He's. He's just the worst guy ever. So that's the genocide that I was talking about.
And this is for children.
What?
The manga was made for children?
Uh huh. Well, teens.
Okay, that's a little bit better, I guess.
So now we get to Naruto. So Naruto is a prankster who develops his own special technique called the Sexy no Jutsu, where he turns into a sexy girl to distract people, but he just can't graduate class. It's just awful. But then he masters the Shadow Clone Jutsu technique and he graduates and is put onto a team led by Kakashi Hatake, which includes Naruto, who's the wild child who never knew love. Sasuke, who's the reserved guy who's now in his brother's shadow. And Sakura, who's the girl. Huh? And she likes Sasuke, but Sasuke doesn't care for her. And Naruto likes Sakura, but she doesn't like Naruto. Yeah. Now, now we're actually getting into the story order. So during. So initially they don't get long, but they learn to work together. Their first mission, they go against rogue ninjas Zabuza and Haku, who I'm mentioning because they show up in the video game they're going to be talking about. And Naruto and Sasuke kind of find respect for each other as rivals, even though they realize they are both very people. Kakashi is impressed by his team and has them enroll in the Chunin Exams, which is this Multi Village test where young ninjas are sent from their villages to show off their village's skills for four prospective clients. Gaara, who's a host of the One Tailed Tanooki from the Sand Tribe, enrolls with his two siblings. And much like Naruto because he has this spirit inside, he's treated like an outcast. But unlike Naruto, he never made friends and just suffered additional trauma. And during the exams, Orochimaru uses this opportunity to scout the village and infects Sasuke with a curse mark. Ultimately, though, with skill, luck, and help from Kabuto, who's in disguise gathering data, Kakashi's team makes it to the final qualifying rounds, which turns into a fighting tournament arc where Naruto and Sasuke pass while Sakura gets knocked out. They are given time to train before the trial, so Kakashi trains Sasuke in the Chidori Technique, where he just kind of makes a sound that kills. And Naruto stumbles onto Jiraiya, who trains him in summoning and accessing the chakra of the Nine Tail Fox. Hey, Jiraiya's back. Now it's all just looping together again and again and again and again.
It's just like a wheel turning around and around and around.
Or a whirlwind.
Yeah, that too.
Uh huh. So they get to the tournament. Naruto's battle doesn't ultimately matter, because when Sasuke fights Gaara in his match, Orochimaru reveals that he's taken over the Sand Village as their Kage in disguise and now wants to destroy the Hidden Leaf Village for rejecting him and a bunch of other reasons. And really, he's after secret goal. He captures the Third Hokage and uses the Edo Tensei Jutsu to revive two of the dead Hokage to fight on his side. Minato doesn't get revived because he gets stopped in time. And so, while the rest of the ninjas are working on repelling the attack, the third Hokage sacrifices his life to cut off Orochimaru's ability to cast jutsu. And meanwhile, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke headed after Gaara. And Naruto, sensing the pain and rejection that Gaara felt, defeats him. But then he's like, hey, you can have friends too. You deserve to be loved no matter what these people say. Because Naruto's kind of a shitty kid. But he. He didn't have access to, like, ADD medication and really just never had a good mentor. Also, Naruto does have, like, a teacher mentor, but he isn't actually big enough to fit into the overall plotline. Like, I'm sorry, fans of Rock Lee and Might Guy, they aren't showing up in this. So now they're without a Hokage. They need a healer after all these attacks. So Jiraiya and Naruto are set to find Tsunade, who Orochimaru also wants. That way, she can restore his jutsu. At the same time, Itachi and the Akatsuki are after Naruto's Tailed spirit, and Sasuke, wanting revenge on his brother for killing the village, tries to go after him. Sasuke gets his ass kicked and feels like he's losing ground to Naruto and is sent back to the village. And Naruto and Jiraiya finally find Tsunade, and she gives Naruto a challenge to master the Rasengan, which is a technique that his father developed. And she never mentions that his father developed the technique. So it's this whole secret thing, and basically, if he gets it done, she'll become the Hokage. Otherwise, she is going to work with Orochimaru and restore his hands. And in return, she'll restore her former lover and her brother back to life. Naruto masters the technique, though, and they repel Orochimaru and then return to the village. Orochimaru, meanwhile, really wants Sasuke, and so he sends in his agents that also have curse marks like the one that he gave Sasuke earlier that gives him more power. And they're like, hey, Sasuke, you want more power? We'll activate that curse mark. And he's like, yeah, sounds great. Suck it, Naruto and everyone else. Naruto finds out, and Tsunade is like, okay, yeah, go take these ninjas to bring him back. So Naruto and the team go after while Sasuke's curse mark is being activated, unaware that he's actually being set up as a new body for Orochimaru, because Orochimaru can't restore his jutsu otherwise. Celt just gotta go into Sas Sasuke's body. The team of Leaf Ninjas fight their way through the enemy curse Ninja users. It all gets really close. But then who shows up at the last minute to help them out? Gaara and the other Sand Tribe villagers were like, hey, we got your back, Naruto and friends, because we're allies now. So Naruto, Sasuke. At the waterfall where Madara and Hashirama previously fought, it's all spiraling around again. And Sasuke reveals that he knows that if he kills his best friend like Itachi did, he'd get more powerful. So they go all out. Sasuke activates his curse mark and turns into sort of like a demony mode. But ultimately he spares Naruto because he decides he doesn't want to follow his brother's path and he is going to just abandon the village because it's a sucky place for people who suck. But because it all took so long, Orochimaru switched into another body and has to wait a few years until he can transfer into Sasuke's body. And so over the next two years, Jiraiya trains Naruto, Orochimaru trains Sasuke, and Tsunade trains Sakura, because who else would train them except sort of their older versions? So Naruto returns to the village and the Akatsuki prepare to go after their first target, which is Gaara, who at this point has become the leader of the Sand Tribe. Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura go to help. They fight the Akatsuki with the Sand Tribe. But ultimately Gaara's Tailed Beast is removed from him, which kills him. But he get brought back to life when his grandmother gives him her life energy and Naruto sends some chakra energy. And so he is back to life. No longer has the spirit and he's generally doing better. And they also can't remember the Akatsuki in that battle. Kakashi gets seriously injured and so Yamato, who is a descendant of Hashirama who could seal the Fox away, gets set up as their new team leader. And Sai, a ninja who's serving Danzo, the guy who did who ordered the genocide on the Uchiha clan, replaces Sasuke in the cell. Sakura and Naruto don't trust Sai, since he's both a replacement for their last friend, and he's been trained to not show emotions. It's really kind of fucked up. Yamato's cell attempts to use their captured Akatsuki member to find out who they were supposed to meet with. That's when they run into Orochimaru and Kabuto. And they finally see that Orochimaru and Kabuto are working together. It turns out that Yamato had previously been experimented on by Orochimaru to implant the cells of the first Hokage in his body, granting him power over the Nine Tailed Fox. Naruto gets angry, starts to transform, and Sae reveals that he's actually been sent to help Orochimaru destroy the Hidden Leaf Village. That way, Danzo can take over as the new Hokage in all of the struggle. But Sai, seeing that Naruto and Sakura care for each other, changes his mind. And because they're both so caught up in Sasuke, he tries to grab for Sasuke and Orochimaru. Seems like, no, we're taking Sasuke with us still. We actually just want you to go beat the shit out of these other Akatsuki members for us. And meanwhile, the Akatsuki take out another three of the Tailed Beasts, feeding them into the Ten Tailed Beast statue. And Kakashi and Yamato are like, okay, we need to train Naruto, so he's going to get stronger. And so they do a really cool thing where because Naruto has the Shadow Clone Jutsu technique, where instead of just making after images, he literally creates sentient clones of himself. And apparently using this is actually a war crime that got outlawed after the first Great Ninja War. Naruto's just like, okay, I'm gonna have all of us go and try and use the technique. And then when we merge back together, all of our individual experience just adds to the same one. Like, did you ever read Dr. McNinja?
No, I did not.
Oh, okay. There's a whole thing where Doc McNinja got multiple degrees, isolating himself into clones, and then rejoining back.
That sounds cool as Fuck.
Oh yeah, Dr. McNinja's great. Dr. McNinja is shorter than Naruto.
Let me write that one down.
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, never got a game. So I think legally you're not allowed to talk about it. I can bring it up, you can ask questions, but legally, I think the podcast police are going to come and be like, hey, there's no Dr. McNinja game. You're under arrest.
Sadly, that's true.
It is your blessing and your curse. Just like the curse mark that's on Sasuke's body. And Orochimaru is finally ready to take over the body. But Sasuke's like, hey, guess what, bitch? And reverses the ritual. So he absorbs all of Orochimaru's energy into his body. And then he's like, hey, I know about all these former projects you have. I'm going to make my own gang. We're going to call ourselves the Heavy. And so they plan to go after Itachi, which the Akatsuki and Naruto's team find out about. Kabuto, meanwhile, was like, oh, kind of the guy who I gave the last of my life to. And like, who I had all my plans with is dead. So I'm handing over my notes on the Akatsuki over to the Hiddenleaf Village, and I'm going to try and regrow Orochimaru inside my own body. And everyone's like, cool. And at this point, Itachi tries to reach out to Naruto. And Naruto's like, yeah, I don't want to talk to you. And Itachi's like, okay, but like, remember this for later on. And Naruto's like, what? And we'll get back to that later. So the clues about the Akatsuki send Jiraiya to the Hidden Rain Village, which is ruled by a mysterious figure named Pain, who is a member of the Akatsuki. And Uriah realizes that Pain and his companions are actually some orphans who he tried to help in the past. And now they want to use the Ten Tailed Beasts to sort of have a dynamite strategy. Like, you know how dynamite was invented as a weapon that would be so terrible no one would ever want to fight again. And then everyone's like, oh no, this is actually great to fight with.
Yes, I understand the concept that humans are horrible.
Uh huh. Yeah. So that's his plan with the Tailed Beasts. And Pain has a specific type of eye that lets him control six bodies at once, and he's able to use them to kill Jiraiya. But in Jiraiya's last moments, he sends Naruto a message about him being the Child of prophecy. And this has a secret thing in it that's going to loosen that seal on Naruto's war. Sasuke and Uchiha, meanwhile, finally find each other, and they are evenly matched until Itachi reveals the final Uchiha technique, the Suzano O, which summons a massive Chakra armor that can also attack. Sasuke gets so stressed out that Orochimaru starts to take over his body. And Itachi's like, yeah, no, you're not doing that to my brother. I love my brother. He seals Orochimaru away. Sasuke is still really angry and kills his brother, which activates another Eye Power within him. And then Sasuke, who's dying, gets saved by Obito, who tells Sasuke that he's Madara. He helped Itachi wipe out the village under the orders of Danzo. And Itachi actually left his brother alive so that way he could be a hero and redeem the Uchiha name. It's Asu. He's like, wait, he wanted me to save a village that made him genocide his own people? No, no. I'm going to kill the entire village and especially Danzo. And so the Hibi align with the Akatsuki and they are sent after the only two Tailed Beasts that are left, Naruto and then Lord Killer B. And they specifically get sent after Lord Killer B. Lord Killer B is great because while Kishimoto is not a great character designer, like, especially compared to Ichiro Oda who all of the characters look kind of wild. Kishimoto does create an entire village of Black Ninja and they're actually drawn a really good way. He gets hair. Correct. And Lordkiller B is the guy in his like 40s or 50s who has one of these beasts inside of him. He is also very bad at rapping, and it is endearing. And so Naruto meanwhile finds Jiraiya's last note which is connected to a book that he wrote. And that sends Naruto to the Toad Master where he summoned. There's a new type of jutsu called Sage Jutsu, which requires mastering Dangerous Nature Energy, which is opposed to the Nine Tailed Beast inside of him. And basically it's super hard for him to control it, but if he doesn't control it, he eventually would turn into a stone frog statue.
Okay, so yeah, that's weird.
Uh huh. So Killer B fights the Hebe off with the power of the Eight Tailed Ox. But he's kind of like, you know these guys, they're. They're really just beating me up. His Eight Tailed Ox, the eight tails are like octopus tentacles. And he's like, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to let him cut off a piece of my tail and I'm going to pretend to be dead. So they take the energy back to the Ten Tailed Statue. And Ei, who's the Kage of the Hidden Rain Village, is like, wait, Sasuke did that? I guess we gotta murder Sasuke now. So Pain, meanwhile, sends his bodies to attack the Hidden Leaf Village. And Tsunade tries to call Naruto, but Danzo, who wants a massive disaster, kills the messenger, and Tsunade heals so many people that she falls into a coma. We'll get back to that later. Naruto eventually returns with a Nature Energy which he still hasn't mastered, but he sees the damage, gets so angry that he turns into the Tailed Fox form. And then Pain is like, oh, hey, there's that guy who I need to defeat. Traps him into a gravity orb. And it's basically one of those things where it's like, there's a gravity ball. And then almost all the village is sucked up and smashes into him. Naruto gets so angry, he goes into a trance where he gets to meet his dad because his dad seals of his chakra inside. They finally get to talk, and he's like, I didn't know you were my father. He's like, yeah, you're a great son. I believe this is also the point where Naruto starts talking with a southern accent. Like, not fully southern, but he definitely has a lot of kickish tendencies. Like, he calls his parents Ma and Pa in the official translation.
Okay, I don't know why anybody would just randomly pop up with an accent like that, but I guess it works.
And Monado's like, hey, Pain is also being used. So Naruto is able to work with the village to find Pain's location. Like, okay, let me talk to him first. And Pain is like, wow, Naruto, you really believe in peace. Just like Jiraiya's dream that I guess I kind of betrayed by trying to make Necrosity so bad all war would stop. Like, like, I'm in the Watchmen. I guess I'm going to stop. And Pain uses his special eyes and all this energy that he gathered that he was supposed to use to revive Madara to instead bring back everyone who died in his attack on the village. Tsunade, meanwhile, is left in an indefinite coma. And Danzo's like, hey, I should be the next Hokage. And the Lord of the Fire Nation is not actually part of the Hidden Village. Like, they don't really clarify where the nation and that government starts and stops. It's something that the series isn't really interested in. But they're like, yeah, Danzo's looking for War. That sounds great. The Rain Village emissaries show up looking for Sasuke. They're like, we want to kill him. Naruto's like, you can just beat the shit out of me instead. And they're like, we'll do that. But it doesn't really satisfy us. The he meanwhile find out that they didn't actually deliver the full power of the Eight Tailed Beast, only a portion of the energy. And the Akatsuki tell them that all five of the Kages are going to be meeting to have a summit about the Akatsuki. And Sasuke's like, cool. Thank you for letting me know that. We'll kind of resume things once I've killed Danzo. So they go to the Land of Iron, which is not a ninja nation. And instead of having ninja, they have samurai. They're like Switzerland with samurai.
Okay. Yeah.
So Naruto and Kakashi and Yamato sneak in to try and ask Lord A to forgive Sasuke. But he's like, no, I'm not doing that. That's not how we roll. And then the meeting goes poorly because Danzo really wants power and basically wants everyone to unite under him. It turns out that he has Sharingan powers and he gets caught manipulating everyone and it suddenly turns into chaos. And then the Hebe and a Katsuki attack. While there, Obito tells Naruto about as children and how they keep repeating the paths and that Sasuke and Naruto are their newest incarnation. The Kages and their guards try and sex guards try unsuccessfully to kill Sasuke. But Amito. But Obito saves him in the end and then reveals that, hey, I just need these last two tailed beasts. Then I'm going to use my Su, my super secret technique and take over everyone on the planet. And he declares ninja war.
Because everyone like declaring a thumb war.
Ah. 1, 2, 3, 4. I declare a thumb war. 5, 6, 7, 8. Try and keep the Kage straight.
Crap. Now we're at war.
Ah, Ninja war. More like Nanja war. Like what a ninja is supposed to be is unclear in this series because if you have an entire nation of ninjas, it doesn't make sense. Also, sometimes they have electronic technology and other times they don't. And they. They don't really have roads that we see all that often. Like in the towns they have roads, but like in between they're always just running through trees and stuff. So what if you're like the guy who has to deliver the milk or the grain or the other supplies? Naruto doesn't answer a lot of questions about Naruto.
I mean, where they're going, they don't need roads.
So Danzo gets ousted from leadership, and Kakashi is almost put up as the temporary leader. But Tsunade gets up just in time, and Akatsuki attacks Killer B with a magical sword that he has. But it feeds on so much chakra from the Eight Tailed Beast that it's like, hey, I actually like Killer B instead. And it looks like a kill the Akatsuki member and his brother, Lord A. The ray Kage is like, hey, my brother back alive. It's great to see you. Obito meanwhile, sends Sasuke after Danzo. And it turns out that Danzo just put a bunch of Sharingan eyes into his arms. And he's like, ah, I have so much power, I make you see illusions. And Sasuke eventually kills him and gets revenge for his brother. But there's also a thing with the Sharingan eye where if you overuse it, you go blind. And he's like, well, I guess I have to go steal my brother's eyes. My dead brother's eyes. Where did I put those eyes? It always comes back to eyes. So Tsunade wakes up and leaders of the nations get the approval to form the Shinobi Army. Naruto returns to Toad Mountain to try and connect with the Nine Tailed Spirit. And Kabuto joins Obito and the Akatsuki because he wants access to Sasuke. Now, worried that the Akatsuki only need Naruto and Killer Bee before they take control of the world, the Kages decide to send them to a secret island that is actually Massive Turtle Field of Monsters, where Celeby previously mastered his own connection to the Eight Tailed Fox. Like they're friends. Like they talk and they get along, unlike Naruto and the Nine Tailed Fox. And so as part of this, Naruto confronts his own darkness. And then as part of opening the last seal, he gets to talk to his mother, Kasame. But the Akatsuki member who looked like he was killed with the sword actually survived, was hiding inside the sword, and then is able to send away a message with their location. The island gets attacked and the Ninja War begins. So now this is when stuff is really just going to get weird because we're entering Full Ninja War. So are you ready for Full Ninja War?
Probably not, but we're going to hear about it anyway.
So Kabuto revives every dead named character with Edo Tensai, including Pain Itachi, all the former Kages from all the Former village from all the villages, all the dead Akatsuki members who've been killed off, all the people with curse marks, all the former hosts of the Tailed Beasts, a bunch of other people who never got mentioned before. Zabuza and Haku come back. It's like, hey, I guess we're back. The guy who Tsunade was in love with, who dies back. We don't see if Tsunade's dead little brother came back, but probably he's out there at some point as a sort of undying warrior. And there's also turns out to be a hundred thousand copies of the Zetsu which have been enhanced by Kabuto. That way, they can now disguise themselves as other people, which serves to cause chaos. Like Sakura gets a really short shrift in my description of the series, but also, so do so many other characters. But like, she gets a plot line here where she's trying to heal people, but someone's hurting the doctors. And it turns out that it's one of the Zetsu. In the battle, Obito was able to use two Ito Tensei zombies who were never mentioned before, but had stolen some of the energy from the Nine Tailed Fox when it ate them and then spit them up. And this is enough to start to activate the Ten Tailed Statue. Killer V and Naruto Miwa escape the island. They show the Kages that they've been given love, and they control their Tailed Beasts and work together with them. And so Naruto in Sage Mo is able to be like, hey, I can see all of these Zetsus. And so they take the Zetsus down. Naruto then runs into Itachi, who attacks him. And it turns out that. Remember when I said that Naruto got that meeting with Itachi? And then I said, oh, we'll remember this later.
Time to pull the pit out.
Yeah. It turns out that Itachi somehow implanted a secret command in Naruto so that he gets freed from his other commands because he has to protect the Hidden Leaf Village. A lot of the stuff here is just like, oh yeah. He, Kishimoto never actually planned a lot of stuff. It's like, well, we need to get some of that Nine Tailed Spirit. Oh, here's two brothers who we never mentioned before. Yeah, they have that energy. So Sasuke meanwhile has his brother's eyes, reunites with Tahiti, and Obito ends up reviving the actual Madara who now has pain special eyes. There's just a lot of weird eyes at this point. And pain is back. But now instead of six random ninjas, he now has six former Tailed Beast hosts. And Naruto's like, hey, bees who are being made to fight you. You don't need to do that. Look, we've made friends with ours. You can have a better path in the future. And they're like, cool, we're still being forced to fight you right now. So Sasuke and his brother run into Kabuto, who at this point has fully gained Orochimaru's powers. And he wants Sasuke's bodies. But using their eye powers, they trap him into a infinite time loop battle where until his heart changes, he can't escape. And he's also under their control, kind of, sort of. And Itachi finally gets to be like, hey, Sasuke, I loved you the whole time. And then they force Kabuto to end the Edo Tensei, which deactivates most of the dead. And that's when Orochimaru, who got revived, shows up and he's like, hey, Kabuto, you have my energy. He steals that energy back. And he's like, hey, you know what we need to do? We need to get woke for a moment, talk about dei. And so he uses the Ito Tensai to resurrect the Hokage. And they talk about the genocide that they did on the Uchiha and how that was part of a long term system of disenfranchisement. And the Hokages are like, yeah, no, we really didn't do a great job. If we had the chance, we'd probably do that differently. Miyakopa Uchiha forever.
I mean, I'm glad that they realized the error of their ways.
Yeah, but that's also where we just finally hear a bunch of that Uchiha lore and why things happen the way that it did. Which is why I put that up at the beginning, because it would be very disruptive to bring that up later. So Obito activates Tintail Statue, reveals that he's been Obito the entire time that he was revived. The moon starts to transform for the big Chakra spell. And this is also the point where I kind of go to Super Obfuscation and Simplification mode here. Obito arrives at Chakra Tree. Madara is revived and able to summon a 10 beast, which steals the last of the energy from the nine and eight Tailed Beast, which starts to Killer B and Naruto. But Obito's like, wait, maybe I was wrong. Kakashi has been yelling at me the entire time that I was wrong. So he Gives him back some energy so he stop dying. And Kabuto, having reformed, goes up. And Sasuke also got hurt. And he's like, here, have genetics. And Sasuke's like, great, I'm all better now. So Naruto turns with these Sages Six Paths. And Sasuke activates the Rinnegan, which is like the most fancy eye that he can get. And Obito's like, hey Kakashi, you can have my special eye that I'm training. Kakashi's like, great. But Madara steals it. He's like, oh hey, guess what, Obito? I actually helped kill Rin off. You got played, sucker. Also, I control your body. The Chakra tree activates, which knocks out everyone outside of the range of Naruto and starts to feed on their energy, which is going to turn them into more White Zetsu. And Madara's like, hahaha, this is my plan. Everything's going according to plan. And then Kaguya shows up. It's like, hey, no, actually this is my plan. And steals all of his energy and starts taking over the moon. Control, hypnosis stuff. Like, what it's going to do is turn the moon into a massive hypnotic eye. That's how you get world peace. You just turn the moon into an eye like a big pizza pie. That's Kaguya.
I can follow that logic, which is kind of scary.
Yeah, yeah. So Kaguya is like, hey, I. I see my son's energy in both of you. She steals some of that energy. Is like, hey, I've got my sons back. My sons who tried to kill me. And Ruta's like, oh, this is really bad. Having learned a lot of lessons though, he uses his new secret technique, which is the reverse Harem Jutsu, where he turns into a bunch of sexy ninja distractor. And okay, yeah, you know both sides. Meanwhile, the Kokage who were resurrected are unaffected by the chakra tree. Hagoromo shows up as the ghost somehow, and Kakashi ends up getting Obito's special eye. And he and Sakura work to split the Ten Tailed Statue and knock out Kaguya. And then the Hokage set up a new moon seal for Kaguya. And Hashirama is like, hey, Madara, we kind of messed things up here. We just have to kind of believe things get better. And then that special Edo Tensai is released and they die again. And so Kagi is sealed, everyone's kind of happy, and Sasuke is like, hey, you know those 10 tailed beasts, we should destroy all of them, and Naruto's like, no, they're. They're friends. They can be friends. And so they go and fight on the waterfall again, and it turns out that Sasuke still believes that he's alone in the world. They go all out, each of them end up losing an arm and then realize that both of them still have each other. They reach an understanding, and Sakura the girl comes and prevents them both from dying from their own stupidity. Kakashi eventually becomes the sixth Hokage, Sasuke gets forgiven, and then he leaves for a mission that promises to return to Sakura at some point in the future. And then in the future, Naruto becomes the seventh Hokage, and his son Boruto is a wild child. I'm sorry for everyone who wanted me to talk about Kankuro or Rock Lee or Neji Hinata or in the other characters, but they don't fit into the spirals and those battles are just filler, sadly trying to control everyone. That's NARUTO. That's like 40%. But it's really the main storyline because so much of the battle are just, hey, we're just going to have ninja battles.
Well, we're going to try to wrap our heads around all of that while I drop some promos for a few other things.
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Very, very easy, unlike pimping.
Yes, that is very, very true. All right, so Naruto Ninja Council was a game released on the Game Boy advance in May of 2003. I've also seen March. I don't know what is true at this point. And really that difference of a few months doesn't matter at this point either. It was developed by ARC System Works and published by Tomei Company. It's a essentially a speedrun platformer because you've got a really short timer on it and you got to get through the level and it's really cool. And that is how they get their replayability in there, because they want you to go back and find things, but you only have so much time to do it in. You'd think that this concept is crazy, but we all loved it in Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
Yeah, I watched a person speed running in at double speed. Also importantly, you can play as Naruto or Sasuke, and once you've beaten the game easy mode with both of them, then you unlock Kakashi as a character. I believe you need to collect all of the ninja symbols in it. And so there's different levels. Each of them ends with various bosses. There's a lot more fighting animals in it than I would expect. There's like crows, snakes, bats, flying leeches. You also have to find, like, where all the crew members are. The controls kind of seem weird at points. Like the jumping kind of seems janky because. Yeah, you had said that.
Part of that. Part of that can be explained by the fact that it's a Game Boy advance game. So having janky controls is just kind of something you deal with in that kind of thing.
There's also just weird story order stuff. Like you end up fighting Haku a few times, then you fight members of the Sand Tribe, and then Zabuza and Haku and then Orochimaru. And when you beat the game on hard mode, you also get to fight Gaara at the end. And instead of having actual rewards, it's like there's a thing called visual where if you've found everybody and gotten all their talking parts and you get to look at a picture of their face.
The plot of the story roughly goes around the Land of Waves arc and the Chunin Exam arc, which Luke explained to us what those are in that three hours at the front part of the show didn't specify which parts they were. So go listen to that whole thing again.
I mean, I. I literally mentioned Bar. They fight Haku and Zabuza and I'm literally mentioning that for the game. And then after that is the Chunin Exam works. And Orochimaru interrupts that at the end. So it's there, but in the bigger picture doesn't matter. And again, I'm sorry that I didn't get to talk about all my boys though my favorite guy, whose name I'm forgetting because my brain is now free of needing to know that Naruto is a guy whose just power is bugs. And apparently in another example of Naruto not really explaining things, there's family bloodline powers. There aren't really a lot of bloodline crossovers. And so it really seems like there's a lot of inbreeding because we only see like one guy from each of these families because one of them has the power of bugs and he apparently just has a whole colony of bugs living inside his body. And so power is releasing bugs. And those bugs give me chakra.
I wish that people could see the face I was just giving you because it is probably exactly the face that they are imagining that I'm making listening to that. Or it's people wishing that they could see this instance of Spider's Man.
Yeah, I mean they're flying Buzz. So it's kind of worse that way.
Oh no, that is definitely worse that way. There's no kind of about it.
Also, sorry for all the people who wanted me to talk about the favorite members of the Akatsuki Kasame almost got all the way into having a full name mentioned. But since I will talk about might die in this didn't happen. And also might guy in Rock Lee's story kind of fizzles out because he can't figure out what to do with Rock Lee anymore. And so it just becomes Might Guy testing his body further and further until he kills himself trying to destroy the chakra tree. Which technically works, but also it kind of doesn't. The end of the comic is just so. So poorly plotted. Alright, what other questions do you have about Naruto?
You never explained to me why the running is the way that it is. Is that just a weird stylistic choice because somebody thought it would look cool and then it caught on with kids and they haven't stopped doing it even though they don't understand the reference anymore?
Oh yeah. I mean, it seems like it would make you faster or whatever, but it really doesn't.
It's really weird because I did track in cross country in high school. And there are definitely benefits to bending over when you're running like that. Mostly, though, that is at the end of the race, so you get a little bit more reach and you can cross the finish line. Because it does. It's not your feet, it's part of you crosses the finish line. It maybe not your hands. I don't remember how that works, but your head definitely counts.
Oh, yeah. But it's also really easy to face and fuck yourself up.
Well, I mean, if you're just running for a track meet, then it doesn't matter. You just fall down. You still win. If you win.
Yeah. I mean, if you try to do it too much or if you try and do it in real life because you're putting all of your weight face forward, and so it's really easy to lose your balance. Oh, doing this podcast, I got the last 500 steps I need for my daily 10,000. Delete it.
Nice. Congratulations.
Yeah, you're missing all the ninja gestures that I'm also making during this podcast.
I can't see them because they're too sneaky.
Or is it. I'm right behind you.
Okay, good. You're not. Or you were fast enough to get out of the way when I looked.
Yes. Yeah, the Naruto run thing kind of came because they do a lot of jumping between trees and stuff, and then it just looks cool in the animation.
I mean, that's as good a reason as anything else. So whatever. I mean, the whole plot of this game is super simple. The whole aspect of this game is super simple, which makes sense because if you have something that's on such a big time constraint, like this one is you need simple things to do. So it's just, hurry up, get to the end of the level, beat the boss, repeat it five more times. Because there's six stages. Even though part of the manual, since there's seven stages, I guess people can't count. Or the manual doesn't get edited when they have to take a stage out of the game.
Well, also, none of the people are technically sages. Sage is a very specific title.
No stages. Like the stage of a game.
Stages. Okay. We were saying sages, and I was like, none of those are sages.
Yeah. So, I mean, it's a nice, simple game. You get your two characters, you do your thing. But kind of super condensing this back half because the front half was so big. What are the main things that this game gets right?
Looking at Naruto, I mean, there's a lot of characters, the interactions that you have with the NPCs does vary pretty accurately based on who you're playing as. Like, people are like, I can't believe I lost a Naruto. Or oh, hey, it's great to see you. People are warning for Sasuke.
Well, that's good that they're not just like substituting the name in there, because that's something that I know happens a lot of times. And so it's cool that they're making just actual dialogue.
Yeah, but I mean, like, the techniques really don't vary. And at least the moves for all the bosses are pretty accurate. But Naruto doesn't have a lot of fighting crows or snakes or bastard flying legions.
Well, I don't know if you should fight crows because they'll remember that because crows are evil. And then they'll come back and get you. So that's probably a good thing that Naruto doesn't actually have fighting crows all that much.
In the manga, crows are not evil. They're intelligent. But if you hurt someone, they're going to remember that. Does that make her evil?
No, that makes me dumb. Because I was thinking of ravens.
Also. That still doesn't make ravens evil. Also, you can still make friends with crows. Like, crows are also still pretty intelligent.
Oh yeah. I mean, that part I knew was right. I was just getting the. Traditionally, in a lot of stories that I've been reading lately, ravens are used as messengers of the evil side.
That's just bird stuff. I mean, that's. They're black birds. So maybe you need to read some stuff about ravens that have been used by cool people. Like, have you heard about a little book called the Bible?
I've heard of it, but I don't remember ravens being in there.
It's probably somewhere. Jesus, like, hey, I need to deliver this package really quick. The two ravens sweep down and pick it up.
I was wondering how far you were going to be able to take that one.
Yeah, no, Ravens are friends. Actually, crows and ravens can crop breeding that forms a craven.
I want to see one of those. I wonder if I have ever seen one of those. That sounds really cool.
I think you may be in like certain areas where both populations coexist, but. Yeah, no, that is one of those things where I would be a house owner. That way I could make friends with crows and. Or ravens. Because you basically get a metal tin and then just put nuts into it because they love to eat nuts. And if you put some spices on it, it will deter the squirrel. The crows and ravens meet without A problem. And then sometimes they'll bring you gifts and if they ever give you something special, you give them a bit more or. Yeah, that's how. That's how you currently make a fro and or raven army.
Okay, that's really good to know from my side of things. Looking at Naruto, the characters all look like what I expect them to look like in the game, which is good because you kind of want people to look like themselves. I mean, obviously I don't have watching the anime experience or reading the manga experience to get what that. But they do show you a lot of pictures of people in the manual. And I looked at pictures of people as I was playing the game and stuff. So. Yeah, I mean, they look like who they're supposed to look like.
Yeah.
And they have those nice portraits of themselves while they're talking. Like a lot of Atlas RPGs have.
Yeah, no, it's like stylized in a good way where maybe they're a bit more shorter than they would be, but they also have to fit into the Game Boy Advance.
And what does this one really get wrong looking at Naruto?
Oh, the narrative path is completely messed up. He spends a lot of time fighting things that he doesn't fight. And having read about it, I thought it was more of like a side scroller block as opposed to sort of a tie challenge speedrunning game, that is. Yeah, really. Naruto does not spend a lot of his time finding hidden passages to collect le symbols. He does not use a lot of elemental scrolls to do things like putting out fire or destroy old trees.
And also this game has a distinct lack of genocide, which on one hand is really good, but also is not.
It happened beforehand. It happened beforehand, but nobody mentioned it either. No, I mean the whole thing is also like, oh, well, we're preparing for an attack on the village. And then the heart was like, oh, this was the attack on the village. Yeah. It just feels weird. I think that you could have just made a more standard Naruto fighting game. Kind of gotten a lot of stuff done. That is not what they did.
If you had somebody who you knew wanted to get into Naruto, would you give them this game as a bit of a primer course?
Do they have a Game Boy advance to play it?
Oh yes. They always have the game console to play it on.
I mean, probably not. No, because they can just read the manga or watch the anime.
Yeah, this one, like, I don't think a speedrunning platformer is going to be a good primer course for anybody, really. And that's the main downfall with this one. If they're kind of into Naruto already, I can see it. But, like, this is your first thing or one of your first things. No.
Yeah. Like, if there was a generic, like, fighting game or I don't think they ever made like a Dynasty warriors type game, Naruto like they did for one piece, like, that would be better because what you want is the ability to kind of see each character's direct, like, special moves and how that works. And most of the, like, enemy, most of the, like, boss enemies really have one special move and they kind of span it sometimes.
All this being said, I'm going to go back and play the game some more because it's just fun. Like, it doesn't even matter that it's a Naruto game for the way I'm looking at it. It's just a fun game.
Hey, you can try and do a run through where you only use the sexy no jutsu charged attack.
How did you know how I was playing to get ready for this?
We've done enough of these, Chris. I. I took my brother's eyes and I put them into my own eyes and now I can see through. I've got a Bette Davis eyes.
Well, did you see this coming? We have to get somebody else to give your little summary of Naruto. And that somebody else is a Muppet. So which Muppet do you think should be doing your summary? But also which Muppet am I thinking should be doing your summary?
I mean, I'm a fan of Gonzo's rating of A Christmas Carol as Charles Dick. And so I think that I trust Gonzo to do a good job and to react appropriately. I also feel like I have on some level gonzo energy.
You do. So that's accurate.
I'm very tied between Gonzo and Kermit as the person also will just make sure things get done.
Well, I can tell you that my initial pick is neither one of those.
Okay, well, I feel like you wouldn't want Fozzie because Fozzie might make an unfortunate joke about genocide. Anna would not be very clear. Janice would be like this. Dr. Teeth describing Naruto would be very good time Beaker. Too much of a shtick. I don't think Buns and Honeydew would be a fan of Naruto. We're having to explain it or read because it does not make a lot of sense. So I'm going to say Rolf the dog.
That would be good. But I was thinking Grover.
Okay, okay. You say Muppets, but you aren't like Muppets. Yes, the Sesame street characters are Muppets. Ha. That's.
They cross over a lot.
They do. I'm a big fan. It counts at Christmas. Yeah, but if someone's like, name your favorite Muppet and someone's like Big Bird. You meant like. No, like the Kermit or the Muppet Show. Pass. I think that that's something where you need to open it up. What?
Okay, I will. I will try to clarify that. But also Grover, because Confused Grover is very fun.
There is a Boruto at the end of this book.
I will understand that in three years when I get to another Naruto game.
Oh no, it will take even longer because Boruto doesn't become the main character until the Boruto manga series, which is about Naruto's son, Boruto.
I'm doomed. By the time I understand that, I won't understand it because I will be too old to remember new things.
See, that's why you really don't need to worry about Naruto. You need to worry about Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet diplomat. Because that's, that's going to be a better use of your time that will expose you to art and life and beauty. Political manifestos.
Speaking of political manifestos, I have loved talking to you about all of this. If people want to hear more from you, where else can they find you? Around the Internet?
My main active podcast right now is Dillman's Dawn. D O8M A N C E D A W N which is my Simpsons and One Piece podcast which updates every other week. Probably by the time this goes up, we'll still be in Marineford. We're in like 2009 or so coverage. We still have a long ways to go to catch up, but we're making our way there. I also have a new podcast that you should be coming out later this year and if you follow me on Bluestuy, you'll be able to find out about that. Over the past year and a half, I've written over 16 film length scripts. And so we are launching a new podcast where myself and a co writer are going to be sharing scripts that we wrote by both doing readings of them and then doing follow up episodes to kind of discuss the process and thoughts behind it. And we, we've changed the title a few times so nothing nailed down but I believe is going to be called Put on the Scripts.
Well, at least for all the Things that exist. When this comes out, of course we're going to have links down in the show notes because clicking links is so much easier than trying to remember how to spell things.
Yeah. And you can also find all my previous episodes by looking up Luke on the Play comics search site. That's where you can also find links via social media that I currently fully actively use beyond, I guess, Reddit, which is Blue sky, where it's coldrasky social. Also at my comics and I've written now has everything but hey, Chris, where people find you or more about this podcast.
The best place to do that is over@playcomics.com where there's links to all the social media things, which is mostly blue sky because I am a lazy person and that is just how it tends to work out. I go to that one place and I do the thing if Luke, what do you think people can do if they want to be cool like you and come on the show?
I mean, what I do is I just message and like, hey, Chris, I have too much time and I have something big coming up soon. Can I come on the show? Can you link to that document that you have where it's upcoming things that you need people to be able to cover? And you're like, yeah, get it. And then I'll be sure to get that. And then you schedule the episode, usually a few months in advance. And they're like, hey, Lou, anything you need? And I'm like, hey, could you get a soundboard clamp where it's John Goodman and the film Speed Racer saying more like a nadja. And then you're like, yeah, I can do that. And then I send you a link and you're like, no, I can get. I'm like, okay, I wanted to help. And then you forget that. And then we get the show and it's like, so did he get that clip? Like, no, I forgot. Why did you remind me? I was like, because you had said you were going to get it. More like a nanja, Chris. More like a nanja.
Well, for anybody else, there's a link down in the show notes and you can see what I'm looking to get booked the soonest as we're recording this and probably as it comes out too, I'm looking for guests who want to record in July because all of my spots for June have filled up because, I don't know, there's people who want to be on the show and you can be like them if you want to be like, oh, no, look, class or Dan McMahon. You can give the show money. There's a Patreon where you can do that. And if you don't want to give the show money because you're just like that, you can be like Luke and tell people that the show exists, even if you only tell people about the episodes that you are on. Which I know Luke doesn't do because he has told me that he genuinely enjoys the show. So he tells people about at least a couple other episodes, but mostly the ones that he's on.
Yeah, that's still cool.
I mean, people will figure it out.
I'm very mercenary, like Alinja.
Don't forget that Play Comics is a part of the Gunageek.com network, home to such other wonderful shows as Legends of Shield, where me and Lauren and Michelle use proper grammar, unlike what I just did there. While we look at Marvel shows or movies, sometimes the shows are new, sometimes the shows are older ones, but we're looking at them anyway because they're fun. And much like Luke, I have my own future project which needs to get out because some of it is recorded already. It is called Sugar Spite and Everything is Fine. Where frequent guests on this show, Carrington, Martin and I are looking at those pieces of media that we watched as children and said, hey, this thing taught us that we should share and make sure that everybody has what they need to survive in the world. And now all of a sudden, we're not supposed to do that because we're adults now. That's really weird, isn't it? So we're looking at things like that. One of the first few episodes, we're going to be looking at the socioeconomic aspects of the Mighty Ducks series.
Interesting.
It is interesting. And when we get it out, it'll be really good. If you like the music that we're rudely talking on top of. If when you're listening to the final version, because peek behind the curtain that goes in in post, you can go to backing track GG and check out all the great music there and find something for your own projects. I'm going to selfishly say not this one, because I want to be the only person who's using it. But you mean you can grab it? That's fine.
I mean, alternately, Moby was like, hey, as long as you're not using anything promoting the eating of meat or like, scream awful right wing news. Moby has offered, like free print licenses to use most of his music.
Ooh, that's good to know, too. I mean, I like this song too much. So I'm going to keep it, but that's a good thing to have in my back pocket.
Moby, he's on your side, believe it.
But most of all, just grab a game. Grab a. Grab a stack of comics and go find yourself a new favorite character.
Believe it. Ganona.
No. Oh, you told me you were gonna get it.
Yeah, and then you said, oh, well, you don't need to do that. I'll do it. I'm Chris from Play Comics.
Oh, I completely forgot about it. I completely forgot about it.
It's all right, Chris. I understand. You're more like a nanja. Yeah, it's fine. I also had bigger plans for Naruto initially. And then by the end I was like, oh, well, I need a breather. And then, oh, I need to get these notes done then. Oh, yeah, it's this week, so.
Yeah, that seems about right.
Do you need groceries for real cheap? Go down to the shops of Helm's Deep. The Land of Gondor has your aid. Also half off lemonade. Helm's Deep groceries.
That is over 9,000% staying in somewhere Great.
I can't wait for people to be like, this guy got Naruto facts wrong and God Lord of the Rings stuff wrong mixed up. He can never come back. The problem is, you're eventually going to need me to Cat. You're eventually going to need me to cover the third manga of Sage Bleach. And I'll cover Bleach. Believe it.
I. I don't even know what Bleach.
Is at this point. Bleach was the third series alongside One Piece and Naruto is like the three big manga Shonen Jump.
Okay. Yeah, you're gonna have to come back for Bleach and try to work laundry in somehow.
We actually switched using those, like, sheets like laundry sheets. It's been working out well so far.
That's good.
Yeah, it takes up less space than like, those big bottles of, like, laundry soap. So Naruto Ninja Council was a Game Boy advance game.
This is the Joys of Getting Caught up by Bark Frederick Astro Train on the way home and I didn't get to have everything pulled up like I normally would. Oh, by the way, we named the train that comes by our house Mark Frederick Astrotrain. Because then his initials are MF for obvious reasons and Astro Train because he's a train and he's a bad guy.
Yeah, it's Master of the fine arts.
Also, my wife likes Transformers, so that's what she decided we were going to do.
Are you going to go. That's my transformer sound effect.
Oh, that was a good one.
Here.